From Hollywood, where plastic surgery is considered a sacrament.”
The audience roars as Patricia Heaton, an Emmy winner for “Everybody Loves Raymond” and an avowed Christian, introduces “Thou Shalt Laugh,” a Christian stand-up comedy tour just released on DVD.
Heaton assures the crowd that all of the comedians on the bill are people of faith: “They’re all Christians, that’s correct, they’ve all been baptized, they have all their shots!”
The intent of the DVD, from the producers of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, is to provide gentle, clean fun for an underserved audience. And to tap into the revenues in this burgeoning niche.
There is money to be made in Christian showbiz.
Three years after Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” became a surprise international blockbuster, purveyors of faith- based entertainment believe there is a growing demand for their product.
The number of DVDs targeting the Christian market is growing. Fox, New Line, Sony and Warner Bros. all have special divisions making “Christian” films, some theatrical, many direct-to-video. According to Grace Hill Media, the producers of “Thou Shalt Laugh” and the leading marketing firm for religious consumers, “the Christian entertainment industry has boomed into a more than a $3 billion-a-year industry.” Christian-themed radio and books each reportedly generate more than $1 billion annually.
“There’s no logical reason why we can’t incubate entertainment within the faith-based market and migrate it into the secular market,” said Tony Thomopoulos, a former president of ABC who is now president of Promise Media, creating DVDs for the Christian marketplace.
He estimates the Christian market is worth $7.5 billion, including publishing, licensing, media and music. Thomopoulos said the projected growth for this audience sector is $9.5 billion by 2010.
Some of the mild humor of “Thou Shalt Laugh” may not translate outside the target audience. (“I’m in a Christian bookstore,” says comic Thor Ramsey, “they’re selling Christian breath mints: Testamints!”)
Some of the jokes are merely old-fashioned, others are vaguely racist. (A black and a Korean had a baby and named him “Martin Luther Kim,” says another stand- up.)
The mostly white, mostly middle-aged and Christian crowd loves it. When a tour of “Thou Shalt Laugh” was scheduled to play the New Life Church in Colorado Springs the week after Ted Haggard’s resignation in a gay sex scandal, organizers initially canceled the event.
“Nobody felt like laughing,” said Jonathan Bock, president of Grace Hill Media. But advance ticket sales were strong, so he reconsidered. Ultimately 4,500 people attended the show and 500 DVDs were sold.
“God works in mysterious ways,” Bock said.
Hollywood sees the light
For years, many in the Christian audience were offended by Hollywood – and vice versa.
“The Last Temptation of Christ” alienated the faithful, but Hollywood saw the light once Gibson demonstrated the financial rewards with his controversial “Passion.” The crucifixion film raked in $370 million domestically, $612 million worldwide, opening Hollywood’s eyes to the potential of the religious niche.
Since, efforts to court the religious audience have made inroads. “The Da Vinci Code,” despite or because of protests from true-believers, was the second-highest-grossing film of 2006, pulling in $756 million worldwide. This season “The Nativity Story” debuted at No.4 at the box office.
“The Chronicles of Narnia” is a box-office phenomenon of Harry Potter proportions. Co- produced by conservative Colorado media mogul Phil Anschutz and the Disney Co., “Narnia” grossed $292 million domestically, $737 million worldwide. The allegory about the resurrection of Christ, based on the C.S. Lewis books, is a strong home-video performer as well.
The born-again Christian billionaire Anschutz is on record saying he wants his films to be “entertaining but also to be life-affirming and to carry a moral message.” Walden Media works closely with Christian marketers to push its movies.
FoxFaith Home Entertainment Division, from 20th Century Fox, a branch of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., targets the Christian audience with a line of small-scale productions based on best-selling Christian fiction, notably “End of the Spear” and “Mother Teresa.”
The label was established specifically to target evangelical Christians. To be part of FoxFaith, a movie has to have “overt Christian content or be derived from the work of a Christian author.”
Currently, Gener8Xion’s Entertainment’s “One Night With The King,” a low-budget religious film about the Biblical story of Esther, has grossed more than $13 million. “Facing the Giants,” an inspirational sports movie funded by church donations, grossed more than $8 million this fall. New Line’s “Nativity,” advertised as “the movie that’s putting the Christ back in Christmas,” took in almost $8 million in its opening weekend.
Faith in video games
The latest corner of the marketplace: video games. “Left Behind: Eternal Forces,” based on the end-of-the-world novels, is the controversial first entry. Players portray evangelicals battling Satan in real-time. Although the game has received some bad reviews, it may be just a first step into a medium with a huge youth audience.
Grace Hill Media’s Bock, the go-to marketer for studios trying to reach the faith-based community and a Christian himself, aims to bridge the gap between Hollywood and people of faith. For years the two sides were “suspicious of each other. You’re seeing a thaw,” he said.
Thomopoulos said “it used to be, the moment you say you’re a Christian in Hollywood, you’re labeled politically conservative. The truth is, you can’t label people that way. Don’t politicize when it comes to values.”
Tehya Kopp, Warner Home Video Executive Director, Special Interest Marketing, credits “the strength of the endorsement factor” in the Christian entertainment niche. With that endorsement, “60 percent of your sales effort is taken care of.”
According to Bock, “Every weekend, 43 percent of Americans attend church. Monthly, two-thirds of the country attends church.” Grace Hill is committed to “making these Americans aware of entertainment which shares in their beliefs.”
That’s a demographic with buying power.
A fine line
Still, this is new territory for all parties, and navigating it sometimes proves tricky.
NBC has had a running debate with the creator of “Veggie Tales,” the animated children’s videos conveying Christian ideals, over editing. The wrath of conservative religious bloggers has been brought to bear on the network. NBC maintains that its goal is to reach as broad an audience as possible with positive messages while not advocating any one religious point of view.
More than 50 million copies of “Veggie Tales” have been sold since 1993, according to Big Idea Inc., its producer.
In Grace Hill’s view, even if Hollywood is opening a bit to the Christian audience, mainstream TV is still “out of it,” Bock said.
This, despite the fact that a lead character on Aaron Sorkin’s “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” on NBC is a practicing Christian. The character, Harriet Hayes, regularly speaks of her Christian beliefs, noting she’s a rarity in the world of a late-night TV variety show. The character, played by Sarah Paulson, broke up with her boss over her appearance on “The 700 Club.” They discuss their differences at length.
Bock is unimpressed. “Sorkin has no respect for organized religion but he does respect individual Christians,” Bock said. “I’m not sure television has cracked the code of a fully realized Christian main character.”
He is hopeful, however. “I’d use the example of the process the African-American community went through – it’s taken a while. Same thing with the gay community.”
From fringe characters to fully-drawn, three-dimensional personalities, TV’s minorities have evolved.
“Now you see whole shows centered around those characters,” Bock said.
Because the entertainment business is built on copying success, he said, “the more you see success in Christian films, the more it will bleed over.”
Last year NBC tried a drama, “The Book of Daniel,” featuring Jesus Christ interacting with a contemporary priest. It failed to draw sufficient viewers. Next, Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment will produce “Prodigal Son,” a romantic comedy about a handsome, kind carpenter who turns out to be Jesus Christ.
Bock’s goal is a true renaissance of Christian art and entertainment. Hollywood’s goal is to financially make the crossover, “Passion”-style. Together, they’re fueling a market.
TV critic Joanne Ostrow can be reached at 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com.
